Maggie's Farm

Clinically, the belief that someone is conspiring to keep bad people in or good people out precedes the specifics of who that is. It is founded on the idea that things are going unfairly and unreasonably wrong, so there must be some dark force behind it. This in turn happens because they cannot call their narrative into question, to modify it in the face of reality. We can even identify the parts of the brain this occurs in in psychosis. The story-comparing function is sometimes fully broken. More commonly, it is weakened, so that only dramatic, continuing, personal experiences can change it.

Clinging to a narrative is not a result, but a cause. Propaganda is effective because it makes change even more expensive, so thinking too hard is avoided.